18 Sep 2011
Daniels: Americans ought to be scared

I'm not as scared as I would be if this lying buffoon were running for President ...

"The state was broke when we got here, and we fixed that in a great, big way," Daniels said. "We have re-shaped our economy here to be, by all accounts, one of the most attractive to investment and growth and opportunity in the country. We've built roads at record rates, and then lowered property taxes to the lowest in the country. We made government work well."

Property taxes used to fund schools - and they were never onerous anyway - having lived in Minnesota for a few years I know onerous taxation! But with our property taxes constitutionally mandated at no more than 2%, here's one of the results: Franklin Twp. charges $475 to ride bus.

His "Major Moves" road building project was funded by selling the toll road. We'll see how good a deal that turns out to be, but rates have already risen dramatically. But it doesn't count as a tax increase - it's now a private road!

Of course, raising sin taxes aren't real tax increases either!

Apparently commerce is now a sin like smoking...

That must be because sales taxes are paid by consumers - because we must be business friendly at all costs! Even if sometimes we get a little bit too friendly...

And don't even get me started on the time madness.

So yes, Mitch, Americans should be scared. Scared witless that folks like you are likely to be running the country.

A lot of Republicans wanted Indiana's popular Governor Mitch Daniels to run for President. But he decided NOT to. Daniels sat down with CBS News chief White House correspondent Norah O'Donnell for some Questions and Answers

(link) [CBS]

10:26 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

29 Aug 2010
Time zone battle back in spotlight

Backwards Clock

O Tempora! The problem here isn't Eastern vs. Central, the problem is daylights savings time. If we switched to Central Time (and kept DST) the problem would simply shift around the calendar. It might not be quite as obnoxious, but the net effect would be the same. It's simply an accident of geography that Indiana happens to fit in one of those places where fiddling with the clock is going to have weird side effects, which is precisely why we've been wrestling with time zones since the railroads forced them on the country over a century ago.

Eastern or Central - take your pick, it's almost irrelevant. Just stop springing forward and falling back before more fecal matter hits the whirling blades!

The Central Time Coalition favors having Central Standard Time in the winter and Central Daylight Time in the summer. That would put the state on the same time as Chicago.

(link) [Indianapolis Star]

18:49 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

28 Mar 2010
Russia cuts time zones to 9

Backwards ClockBut the real story here is this:

Last November, in his annual State of the Nation address, the Russian president proposed an even more radical reform. He suggested not only to cut the number of time zones in Russia but also abolish the current switch to daylight saving time, which the country has been doing since 1981.

Gosh, somebody actually gets it:

"The energy advantages are negligible," he [chief Kremlin economist Arkady Dvorkovich] said, "but the health of the people and their stable biological rhythms is a much more important factor."

I also didn't know that Russia had only been doing DST since 1981 - about the time that they started loosening up and getting more "capitalist"... makes ya wonder, eh?

The world's largest country by land mass is challenging time: This weekend, Russia is cutting the number of its time zones from 11 to 9.

(link) [CNN]

12:01 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

13 Mar 2010
Wait! Daylight Saving Time will cost me money?

Backwards Clock

Hey, Mitch! I want my $10 back (for three years of this idiocy). Somehow, the state doesn't seem to be giving out rebates for this... wonder why? Of all the moronic things our current governor has done, and he's got a whopper of a list going, daylight savings time has to be the one that galls me the most. This seemingly trivial thing has huge implications well beyond energy waste. Look up accident statistics for the week after "springing forward" to see exactly what I'm talking about.

The move to Daylight Saving actually used 1 percent more electricity than if people stuck to Standard Time, according to a 2008 study of residents in Indiana. In other areas of the United States, the time change could cost people even more.

(link) [Christian Science Monitor]

Update:I forget to mention heart attacks...
via Masson's Blog

17:26 /Home | 2 comments | permanent link

12 Nov 2009
Faulty body clock may make kids bipolar

Backwards ClockGosh, I wonder what could possibly be disrupting their natural biological cycles?

Malfunctioning circadian clock genes may be responsible for bipolar disorder in children. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Psychiatry found four versions of the regulatory gene RORB that were associated with pediatric bipolar disorder.

(link) [EurekAlert!]

08:35 /Politics | 1 comment | permanent link

08 Mar 2009
Once More Into the Breach

Backwards ClockThe computer clocks say it's 10:49am - the clock on the wall says 9:49am. It's that time again - and it's bloody amazing that we can still tell time at all.

I'll be screwed up, natural-rhythm-wise, for a few days. And the Hoosier State will be known as the "Southernmost Land of the Midnight Sun" come June. And next November, we'll return to some semblance of normal, but the return will throw off my inner cicada again, and it'll be Thanksgiving before I feel like myself.

Which I suppose is, in some backhanded way, appropriate.

09:57 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

22 Nov 2008
Eliminate DST Nationwide

Backwards ClockI mentioned this study back when it was released, but the authors now have an op-ed in the Grey Lady using it as a basis for recommending elimination of daylight savings time nationwide. Why?

"Daylight time costs Indiana households an average of $3.29 a year in higher electricity bills, or about $9 million for the whole state. We also calculated the health and other social costs of increased pollution emissions at $1.7 million to $5.5 million per year."

Note to Obama: wanna save energy? You know what to do!

Why do we — along with 75 other countries — alternate between standard time and daylight time? Although many people believe it has an agricultural provenance, daylight time has always been a policy meant to save energy. As Benjamin Franklin argued, if people moved up their summer schedules by an hour, they could live by “sunshine rather than candles” in the evenings.

(link) [New York Times]

09:24 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

10 Nov 2008
Daylight Savings Time Increases Energy Use in Indiana

Backwards ClockThis is the second study using Indiana as a model that's confirmed this. If Obama is really serious about cutting energy use, he could immediately save us 1% by repealing DST nationwide.

But I'm not holding my breath.

The Freakonomics Blog reports on a study of Indiana energy use for daylight savings time showing an increase in energy use of 1%. 'The dataset consists of more than 7 million observations on monthly billing data for the vast majority of households in southern Indiana for three years. Our main finding is that — contrary to the policy's intent — D.S.T. increases residential electricity demand.' Maybe that's just from millions of coffee makers being pressed into extra duty.

(link) [Slashdot]

07:28 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

30 Oct 2008
The Daylight Saving Loss

Why do we insist on doing this to ourselves?

The concept of "Fall back" changes when you become a parent.

(link) [New York Times]

06:41 /Politics | 4 comments | permanent link

04 Mar 2008
Daylight Saving Time Wastes Energy

Backwards ClockYeah, thanks, Mitch. We'll bear this number in mind come November this year, when we get up to vote for your opponent in the dark.

With the time approaching when we'll be changing our clocks again, the Wall Street Journal is running a timely article on a study done by a UC-Santa Barbara economics professor and a Ph.D. student. The study unambiguously concludes that Daylight Saving Time not only doesn't save any energy, it actually wastes energy and costs more. The study used energy company records from Indiana before and after that state mandated DST for all of its counties, and calculated that the switch cost Indiana citizens $8.6M per year. "I've never had a paper with such a clear and unambiguous finding as this." the professor said.

(link) [Slashdot]

06:52 /Politics | 1 comment | permanent link

14 Jun 2007
Research finds that circadian rhythms dominate all life functions

Something for the idiots behind Daylight Savings Time to consider ... it's 10:07 pm EDT here, and it just now got dark. On June 14th. Ridiculous.

New research from Colorado State University shows that the function of all genes in mammals is based on circadian -- or daily -- rhythms. The study refutes the current theory that only 10 percent to 15 percent of all genes were affected by nature's clock.

(link) [EurekAlert! - Breaking News]

21:10 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

14 Mar 2007
Steaming

Backwards ClockWell, it's 7:15 am EDT on this March day, just before the vernal equinox. And it's dark outside in central Indiana. I should be getting ready to leave for work, but I can't. I have to wait until it's light to open up the henhouse. That is, if I want to have any hens left - one coyote in the predawn darkness and I'd be wiped out.

So here I sit, waiting. I'm not in the dark, though, as the "standard" indoor lights are on, kitchen, living room, office. A local station with traffic reports blares outta the TV. My computer monitor is fully powered. If the weather forecast holds, Friday morning the furnace will be running. I'm sure glad I'm saving all this energy!

So I'll be about an hour late to the office - they don't mind, really, as long as I get my time in. That's a good thing. So I'll head home about 6 or so, and then have to wait until 8 to lock down the henhouse, because chickens won't roost in daylight. Imagine that.

There's a word for the folks in the Statehouse who foisted this bullshit on us.

Morons.

06:29 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

08 Mar 2007
Saving Even More Daylight

Backwards ClockWell balanced article pointing out the ephemeral nature of the so-called "energy saving" engendered by this annual exercise in lunacy.

But since we're going to be going on it earlier this year, and staying earlier later (huh?), I've decided that I'd better get some more storage bins to save all that extra daylight in - maybe I'll just convert the hay mow above the main floor of the barn to a "daylight mow", and we can save it all in there...

Better double-check your appointment schedules this Sunday, March 11. That's when daylight saving time will start — three weeks earlier than usual — in most of the U.S. and Canada. In an attempt to save electricity, the U.S. Congress introduced a provision in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 mandating that clocks "spring forward" three weeks earlier, on the second Sunday in March, and "fall back" a week later, on the first Sunday in November. But the energy conservation that extra hour of sunlight is supposed to deliver comes with a cost: computer glitches that some fear could run to Y2K proportions. Companies with BlackBerrys and older computer applications must make manual adjustments or run software "patches" to revise internal clocks, often expensive endeavors.

(link) [Time]

07:21 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

11 Feb 2007
Stop the US daylight saving madness!

Backwards ClockWe're gonna have some fun here in Indiana next month. Dawn about 8:30am and sunsets at 8:30pm ... equinox, ya know. That'll screw me up big time, as I'll be forced to open the hen house in the dark, before I go to work. Right when the coyotes are starting to have their litters, and the moms start getting hungry.

Hmm, on second thought, maybe there's a lawsuit in there somewhere!

US plans to change daylight saving hours this spring could wreak havoc on computer systems, Gartner claims. The analyst firm said automated systems could run haywire this March.

(link) [The Register]

21:39 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

20 Nov 2006
Daniels appears headed to 2nd term

What in the world is Russ Pulliam smoking? Has the Indianapolis Star columnist lost touch with reality?

Daniels has the 4th lowest approval rating among all governors, bottoming out last April at 64% negative right after DST went into effect here for the first time in 40 years. And I don't think anyone could characterize this last election as a Republican victory in Indiana!

Even in Boone County, where I live, the beating red heart of one of the reddest states in the nation, you see far more Not MY Man bumper stickers in the parking lots at the local supermarkets than you do one's proclaiming that the guv is "My Man Mitch"....

The way it looks right now, the Democrats could nominate a ticket of Hitler and Stalin in 2008 to run against Daniels and Jesus Christ and still win in a landslide.

I guess that this just goes to prove if you're looking for honest political analysis, you need not bother reading the Indianapolis Star. They've certainly got an agenda, though I daresay no one will accuse them of being a member of the "liberal mainstream media" anytime in the near future.

He's not tall enough to play Goliath in real life, but Gov. Mitch Daniels is looking like a giant for any Democrat to challenge in 2008.

(link) [Indianapolis Star]

09:07 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

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